Nightwork

'One lady. In Washington.' Good old Evelyn Coates.

'What did you answer?'

'I said my family had money.'

'Not bad. At least for the time being. If the question arises in Gstaad, I suggest you tell the same story. Later on, we can invent a new one. Perhaps you can say you're a managerial consultant. It covers a multitude of murky activities. It's a favorite cover for CIA agents in Europe. It won't do you any harm in most circles if that's what people believe. You have such an honest face, no one will be inclined to doubt anything you say.'

'How about your face?' I asked. 'After all, people will be seeing us together all the time. Finally we'll be held responsible for each other's faces.'

'My face,' he said reflectively. 'Quite often I study it for hours on end in a mirror. Not out of vanity. I assure you. Out of curiosity. Frankly, I'm not quite sure I know what I look like. Moderately honest, perhaps. What's your opinion?'

'Aging playboy, maybe,' I said cruelly.

He sighed. 'Sometimes, Douglas,' he said, 'frankness is not the virtue it's cracked up to be.'

'You asked me.'

'So I did. I asked you,' he said. 'I'll remember not to ask you again.' He was silent for a moment. 'I've made a conscious effort through the years in a certain direction.'

'What direction?'

'I have tried to make myself look like a semi-retired, English gentleman farmer. Obviously, at least as far as you're concerned, I haven't succeeded.'

I don't know any retired, English gentlemen farmers. We got very few of them at the Hotel St Augustine.'

'Still, you didn't guess that I was an American by birth?'

No.'

'A step m the right direction.' He smoothed his mustache gently. 'Have you ever thought of living in England?'

'No. Actually, I haven't thought of living anyplace. If my eyes hadn't gone wrong, I suppose I'd have been happy staying in Vermont. Why England?'

'Many Americans find it attractive. Especially in the country, perhaps an hour or so away from London. A polite, uninquiring race of people. No hustle or bustle. Hospitable to eccentrics. First-class theater. If you like horses or salmon fishing...'

'I like horses all right. Especially since Rêve de Minuit.' '

'Brave animal. Although I wasn't thinking in exactly those terms. Eunice's father, for example, rides to the hounds three times a week.'

'So?'

'He has a handsome estate which happens to be just one hour from London...'

'I'm beginning to catch on,' I said flatly.

'Eunice is quite independent in her own right.'

'What a surprise.'

'For myself,' he said, 'I find her extraordinarily pretty. And when she isn't under the dominating influence of her sister, a lively and intelligent girl....'

'She's barely looked at me since she arrived,' I said.

'She'll look at you,' he said. 'Never fear.'

I didn't tell him about the lascivious thoughts that had crossed my mind, with Eunice as target, as we drove steadily through the neat countryside. 'So,' I said, 'that's why you asked Lily if she thought Eunice would join us?'

The notion might have flickered through my subconscious,' he said. 'At the time.'

'And now?'

'And now I would advise you to consider it,' he said. There's no great hurry. You can weigh the pros and cons.'

'What would Lily have to say about it?'

'From what she's let drop here and there, I would say that on the whole Lily would react favorably.' He slapped his hands briskly together. We were approaching the outskirts of Bern. 'Let's say no more about it. For the time being. Let us say we'll allow matters to take their natural course.' He reached forward and took the automobile map out of the glove compartment and studied it for a moment, although wherever we went he seemed to know every turn in the road, every street comer. 'Oh, by the way,' he said offhandedly, 'did Priscilla Dean slip you her telephone number that night, too?'

'What do you mean, too I nearly stuttered. 'She did to me. I'm not vain enough to suppose she was all that choosy^ After all she's an American. Unfailingly democratic.'

'Yes, she did,' I admitted. 'Did you use it?'

I remembered the busy signal. 'No,' I said, 'I didn't.' 'Lucky man,' Fabian said. 'She gave the Moroccan the clap. You turn right at the next corner. We'll be at the restaurant in five minutes. They make excellent martinis. I think you can indulge yourself in one or two. And have wine with lunch. I'll drive the rest of the afternoon.'

17

We arrived in Gstaad in the early dusk. It had begun to snow. The lights were just being lit in the chalets scattered along the hills, their glow behind curtained windows cozy and warm in the twilight. In this weather and at this time of day, the town looked magical. There was an instant of nostalgia for the harsher slopes of Vermont, for store signs in English rather than German. I wondered what Pat was doing at this moment.